Brawn praises Red Bull: 'That goes for Adrian Newey in particular'

The 2022 season was an important year for Formula 1 with the introduction of the new regulations. Ross Brawn takes stock and believes the sport has taken a step in the right direction.

In recent years, there have been many complaints from fans that Formula 1 was becoming too boring. Mercedes' dominance provided little excitement and overtaking on the track was also becoming increasingly difficult. Therefore, F1 decided to introduce new regulations that should make it easier for drivers to follow each other on the track. It was also hoped that the F1 teams would be closer together, which should lead to a more exciting title fight. Brawn's work served as the basis for the new technical regulations for 2022. The Briton will leave his position in F1 at the end of this year.

Speaking to the Dutch branch of Motorsport.com, Brawn admits that the new regulations are not yet perfect. Overtaking has not yet improved at every track and the field is also not as close together as hoped. Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen eventually won both world titles in dominant fashion. Still, he is generally happy with the new rules. He therefore rates the new regulations with an eight or nine on a scale of ten.

Drivers closer together on track

The biggest problem for F1 teams was the porpoising phenomenon, which hit Mercedes especially hard. That the teams suffered so much from bouncing is partly their own fault. "Those who experienced that years ago were possibly more aware of how to deal with that. That goes for Adrian Newey in particular, their car [Red Bull] hardly had any problems," Brawn says. In contrast, other teams took too much risk because they wanted to find as much speed as possible. In the end, everyone managed to find a compromise.

Many drivers compare the new cars to 2021, but Brawn thinks that is unfair. The Briton believes the quality of racing has improved because there is less downforce loss when drivers race wheel-to-wheel. As a result, the cars were more predictable and drivers were much more confident, according to the Briton.

Instead, the previous generation of cars only got worse and that trend would only have continued in 2022 and 2023. "So not only have we found a better direction, but we have also ended the path towards cars that are impossible to race with," Brawn ends.